Mr 47 percent! Mitt Romney's vote count set to hit the magic number that helped him lose the election

With the vote counting drawing to a close, Mitt Romney is set to end up as 'Mr 47 percent' - the proportion of Americans he infamously branded as 'victims' and 'dependent on the state'.

According to Dave Wasserman of the non-partisan Cook Political Report, with new tallies from Maryland coming in, President Barack Obama has now crossed the threshold of 64 million votes, bringing Romney's national percentage down to 47.56 percent.

Once the counts in the Democratic strongholds of California and New York are completed, it is a virtual certainty that Romney will dip below 47.5 percent meaning that his overall percentage will be round down to 47.

Mr 47 percent: Mitt Romney is expected to end up with the same percentage of the vote as the proportion of Americans he infamously branded as 'victims' and 'dependent on the state'

Obama now has a higher popular vote that president George W. Bush achieved when he was re-elected in 2004. Bush defeated Senator John Kerry by just over three million votes while Obama currently leads Romney by over four million.

By way of some consolation for Romney, he has now exceeded Senator John McCain's losing vote total in 2008.

The September release of Romney's '47 percent' comments, made a a private fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida four months earlier, was one of the pivotal moments of the 2012 campaign.

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Speaking to wealth donors, he said: 'There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.

'All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.

'That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48 - he starts off with a huge number.

Romney's '47 percent' comments, made at a private fundraiser in Florida was one of the pivotal moments of the 2012 campaign

'These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich.

'I mean that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people - I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

'What I have to do is convince the five to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like.'

Romney later disavowed the comments as 'completely wrong' after initially saying only that they were 'inelegantly stated'.

By way of some consolation for Romney, he has now exceeded Senator John McCain's losing vote total in 2008

He told Fox News: 'My life has shown that I care about 100 percent, and that's been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100 percent.'

But after the campaign, Romney told donors in a conference call that 'what the campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, giving them extraordinary financial gifts from the government'.

This was interpreted by Democrats and many Republicans as a reiteration of his 47 percent remarks and a number of senior party colleagues condemned him for showing disdain for ordinary voters.

The likelihood of Romney ending up with 47 percent of the national vote has prompted glee on the Left. Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos has started a 'Mitt Romney "47 percent" watch.'

He wrote: 'It doesn't matter of course, but it would be delicious irony to see him finish the election at that very famous 47 percent mark.'

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post said it would be 'a poetic justice' if the former Republican nominee ends up with 47 percent of the vote

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post described it as 'poetic justice' and 'a perfect conclusion to the Romney political saga'.

He added: 'And consider the numbers themselves. The Romney victory was always based on the hope that a whiter-than-2008 electorate would ensure that Obama’s victory was a demographic fluke.

'Yet Obama’s constituencies - many of whom make up Romney’s fabled 47 percent - turned out to add up to the majority, confirming that these ongoing changes are real and inexorable, a sign of what America is really becoming.

'If Romney’s described electorate - the job creators and the makers of America who were supposed to be enraged at all the moochers and the takers - ends up totaling 47 percent, we will have come full circle.'